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-------------------------------- GENET-news --------------------------------
TITLE: Brazil burns soy in battle over biotech foods
SOURCE: Reuters
DATE: March 5, 2002
------------------ archive: http://www.gene.ch/genet.html ------------------
Brazil burns soy in battle over biotech foods
SAO PAULO, Brazil - Agents in Brazil burned 21 tonnes of illegal
genetically modified soy this week, police said as the battle over
bioengineered foods heated up in Latin America's largest agricultural
power. The destroyed genetically modified soy was part of a larger batch of
more than 55 tonnes whose recent confiscation has led to the arrest of at
least 15 farmers in two southern states. Another batch of the genetically
modified soy was burned last October in Brazil, one of the world's largest
agricultural producers to have banned planting genetically modified seed.
Federal prosecutors indicted the farmers, from the soy states of Rio Grande
do Sul and Parana, for possession of illegal genetically modified soy, but
have offered pre-trial deals to those who cooperate and turn over the black-
market beans.
"I have recommended to the court that the charges against eight farmers in
Rio Grande do Sul be suspended. All have agreed to turned over their GM
seeds and cooperate," public prosecutor Paulo Mazzotti Girelli told
Reuters. He added that officials would test the farmers' crops after
harvest to determine if they also would be confiscated. Girelli said all
the estates were larger farms, but he gave no exact size. Brazil's Seed
Producers Association (Abrasem) said recently that more than half of the
soy crop in Rio Grande do Sul, country's No. 3 soy state, may be the
illegal genetically modified variety sown from Monsanto's leading GM
Roundup Ready beans smuggled across the border from Argentina.
In the state's municipality of Julio de Castilhos alone, Girelli charged
seven farmers for possession of more than 55 tonnes of contraband
genetically modified soy. The government recently stepped up operations to
curb the thriving biotech black market by sending agents into the soy-rich
southern states to test for illicit soy, but it also has pushed for
legalizing genetically modified crops in Brazil's Congress. Accusations and
protests by opponents have become near weekly events in the face of the
government's efforts to open Brazil's farming market to multinational
biotech companies like Monsanto.
The congressional Committee on Genetically Modified Foods was about to vote
on a bill tomorrow that would permit genetically modified foods and crops
in Brazil when raucous protests in the assembly led to a shoving match
among committee members that delayed the vote until next week. A GM-Free
Brazil, a group composed of 50 nongovernmental organizations, is planning
to demonstrate again at the committee vote on Wednesday, said Greenpeace GM
specialist Mariana Paoli.
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